Spirited Away 2: Remembrance
by RAYNeeDAYZ
Summary: With no memory of her time in the Spirit Realm that took place more than seven years ago, Chihiro Ogino is content with being a normal teenager. However, an encounter with an other-worldly being forces her to rethink her past, and she soon finds herself in a world where she has supposedly been before.
1. Dust and Dirt

**Summary: With no memory of her time in the Spirit Realm that took place more than seven years ago, Chihiro Ogino is content with being a normal teenager. However, an encounter with an other-worldly being forces her to rethink her past, and she soon finds herself in a world where she has supposedly been before.**

**A/N If you've been following my first _Spirited Away _story at any given time, you're going to kill me. And if you are one of the few readers who got to read the first two chapters of the second _Spirited Away _story I put online for approximately twenty-two hours, you're going to kill me as well. *For those of you that don't understand, I recently wrote a second _SA _fanfiction but quickly deleted the story altogether since it was that bad. I published it on New Year's Eve since I didn't have anything better to do (insert _Forever Alone _meme here), so not many people know about it. **

**Anyways, I know that I haven't updated to my first story in quite some time. I really don't have a legitimate reason other than the fact that I think it sucks. I guess that's common in every hobby/profession in the sense that somebody will start a work, leave it alone for a while, then come back to it and realize that he/she can do much better than what was left behind. So while I'll finish the story eventually, I just really wanted to start a new one since inspiration has finally hit me again.**

* * *

><p>"Come with me."<p>

"For the millionth time, no."

"Why not?" Kagura demanded, moving to stand over the bed where her friend laid. "You don't even know where we're going."

"I don't care."

"Then come! It's not like you're doing anything else right now."

Pathetically enough, it was true. Chihiro Ogino had made absolutely no plans for her Saturday night, and she'd intended on keeping it that way.

It's not like she didn't enjoy having fun. In fact, she detested boredom and sought out anything that was considered remotely enjoyable by a third-year in high school. She'd attended more than one party during the summer with her friends. While she'd never done anything illegal like drugs or underage drinking, she did socialize with fellow peers and dance the night away.

But it wasn't summer anymore. It was fall, and just on the brink of winter, too. Nobody was throwing any parties now, not that it mattered. Kids her age were currently in their respective houses curled up in their respective beds, trying to refill the energy that was lost during the school week. Which is exactly what she'd been trying to do, until Kagura invited herself over to recruit help for a school project.

"I don't care if I'm not doing anything," Chihiro said, rolling on her side, away from her friend. "The last thing I want to do is a school project. I had four tests this week, and I'm exhausted. Go away."

"Oh, c'mon," Kagura begged. "I need you. I still have so much to do, and I haven't even started!"

"When is it due?" Chihiro asked, her voice slightly muffled by her comforter.

"This Monday."

"And when was it assigned?"

"Two months ago."

Chihiro rolled back over to throw her friend a disdainful glance. "You're pathetic."

Contrary to popular belief, Kagura was smart. Incredibly so, actually. She never earned less than an A on any of her tests, and she had always been in the top five percentile of her class. Unfortunately, she just so happened to be the world's most skilled procrastinator in the history of procrastination.

"_I'm _pathetic? Look at you!" Kagura gestured to Chihiro's body, wrapped up like a sushi roll in a multitude of sheets and blankets. "My grandmother looks more lively than you. And she's been dead for five years!"

"I already told you. I'm tired." Chihiro forced a yawn to back up her statement. "And don't drag me into your school affairs. You should have started this project a while ago."

"Jeez, what _is _it with everyone lately?" Kagura asked, her eyes cast upward as if waiting for the heavens to give her the answer. "Mai was in bed today, too. You're all so... bleh."

"I can't believe you're not _bleh. _How do you still have this much energy by the end of the week?"

"Probably the coffee."

"Oh, right," Chihiro mumbled into her pillow. "How could I forget the fifteen cups of coffee you drink per day?"

"Fifteen?" Kagura repeated offendedly. "The most cups I've had in a day is only ten."

"Only?" Chihiro asked, managing to add some degree of disbelief to her sleep-deprived voice.

"Yes, only. The record is eighty-two cups in seven hours. And you're changing the subject." Kagura reached over and stripped the comforter off of Chihiro. "Come with me."

Chihiro shivered against the suddenly cool air, her arm fumbling for the blanket. "No."

"Why not?" Kagura demanded of her friend once again.

Chihiro grabbed the comforter back. "Do you think that asking the same question over and over again will eventually result in a different answer?"

"That's what I'm hoping for."

"I can't go anywhere. I have work to do."

"Nice try. But I think you're forgetting the fact that we've known each other since middle school. If you did have work to do, you'd be getting it out of the way right now instead of lying in bed like a dead person."

Damn. Kagura was sharp.

"My parents won't let me go," Chihiro tried.

"Ah, the classic excuse." Kagura shook her head. "Please. Your parents aren't even here."

"Yeah, but -"

"But nothing. They're far more lenient than my parents when it comes to going out. Besides, where we're going is just a few minutes away. I promise."

Chihiro raked her brain for any other excuse. She found none.

Kagura sighed impatiently. "You're a terrible liar, by the way."

Chihiro turned groggily toward Kagura. "You really want me to go?"

"Yes."

Chihiro sighed. She knew she'd eventually give in to Kagura's request. She always did.

No wonder Kagura's nickname was "Miss Relentless."

"Please?" Kagura asked, proceeding to sit on her blanket-wrapped friend. "Please please please please please -"

"Alright, fine!" Chihiro snapped, sitting up. The sudden movement caused Kagura to fall backwards off the bed and onto the floor. "I'll go with you."

"Yay!" Kagura clapped from her place on the floor.

Normally, Chihiro would have laughed hysterically at her friend's fall, but four tests and an endless supply of homework given over the span of less than a week could definitely leave a teenager feeling drained. That, combined with the fact that the coffee-obsessed, procrastinating Miss Relentless was pestering her on a weekend night did not make Chihiro a very happy camper.

"You know, on some days – today especially – I wonder why I'm even friends with you," Chihiro said as she pushed herself out of bed, directing her gaze to her friend who was still applauding on the floor.

"Because I'm awesome?" Kagura suggested, not at all bothered by Chihiro's hostility as she flipped a blonde strand of hair behind her shoulder.

Chihiro shuffled to her closet on the other end of the room. "If that's the case, then I'll have to ask you to crank this supposed awesomeness down a few notches. It's annoying." She opened her closet and grabbed her winter fleece. She quickly shrugged it on and grabbed her cellphone from her nightstand. "You owe me for this."

"Yeah, yeah," Kagura said. She grabbed Chihiro by the arm and began leading her out of the room and down the stairwell.

"Wait," Chihiro said, stumbling along as she held her phone up to her face.

"Are you texting somebody?"

"Yeah."

"Who?"

"My mother. She and my dad are still at work." She sent Yuko a text explaining that Kagura had whisked her away for something school-related and that she'd be back in time for dinner.

"Seriously? It's getting kind of late." They were nearing the front door.

"Since mom's a teacher, she's probably still at the middle school grading papers or something. And since dad is the manager of some insurance company, he's always the last to leave."

"When do you think they'll get home?"

Chihiro shrugged. "Probably within the next hour or so."

"Don't worry, I'll have you home by then." Kagura flashed a cheesy smile to which Chihiro rolled her eyes.

By that point, they were just getting out the door.

The crisp, late autumn air immediately chilled Chihiro to the bone. Her breaths came out in wispy puffs of steam, and she huddled into herself for warmth. Winter was on its way, its nearness marked by the fine layer of frost that coated the ground.

It was nearing six o'clock in the evening, the sun just an orange, glowing crescent against the flatness of the horizon. It would be completely dark soon.

"By the way," Chihiro started as she climbed into the passenger seat of Kagura's beat-up gray sedan. "You never told me where we're going." She wrinkled up her nose – the interior of the car smelled like coffee.

Kagura started the car and, after cranking up the heat, peeled out of the Ogino's driveway.

"Well, this project is for my economics class."

Chihiro waited. "Okay, so?"

"_So," _Kagura continued, "part of this project includes an essay about the importance of money management. You know that abandoned amusement park just down the street?"

Chihiro nodded. "Of course." Though she'd never been there, all the locals knew about it.

Rumor had it that staying there past sunset would whisk the visitor into another dimension. But like most urban tales, there was no evidence to support this claim, and the rumor was acknowledged more as a silly children's story.

"My essay is going to be based on the failure of this park," Kagura said as she sped smoothly down the road. "I mean, why not? This park, just like all the others in Japan, was most likely shut down due to financial issues. It definitely goes hand-in-hand with economics."

"Yeah, but why do we have to go there if you're just going to write an essay about it?"

"Like I said, the essay is just a _part _of the whole project. I need visual evidence to support the essay." Kagura pulled off the main road and into a dirt one. "That's why we're taking pictures."

"You don't own a camera."

Kagura scoffed. "I don't need a camera. I have something called a cellphone."

"It's going to be dark soon."

"Then it's a good thing the cameras in our phones include flash."

"Why couldn't you have used pictures from the internet?"

"Because there are no pictures of this place on the internet. This place doesn't even have a name!"

"Okay, one more question. Why am I going?"

"Because an abandoned anything is creepy, especially at night. There's no way I was going to come here by myself." Kagura shuddered.

"Then you should have come tomorrow during the day and left me out of it altogether."

Kagura shook her head. "I wouldn't have had the time. I figured I'd gather all the visual keys tonight, then do the writing tomorrow."

Chihiro sighed and turned to look out the window.

As the car ventured further into the denseness of the woods, the texture of the road became rockier. Twice, Chihiro was thrown against her seatbelt and had to grab the dashboard to support herself. She did a double-take as they passed a smiling statue that stood in a thicket of trees.

"You're right," Chihiro said, turning to Kagura. "This place is creepy."

Kagura laughed. "We're not even there yet."

The car hit a nasty bump, nearly flinging Chihiro out of her seat.

"Is this safe?" she asked, a small trace of nervousness beginning to form in the underlying tone of her voice.

"Don't worry," Kagura reassured her. "I've got a four-wheel drive."

Chihiro was suddenly hit with a sense of déjà vu. She'd heard that line before.

"Wait, say that again -"

Suddenly, the car braked sharply, its tires struggling to find purchase in the dirt road. Both girls were flung back into their seats, their hearts thumping erratically against their chests. The vehicle painfully made a screeching stop, kicking up a cloud of dust and dirt.

The girls sat in a few beats of stunned silence.

Chihiro was the first to break the tension. "What the hell, Kagura?"

Kagura gave a nervous laugh. "It's a good thing I have fast reflexes."

"What are you talking about? You braked out of nowhere!"

"I braked when I saw that we were about to become roadkill." Kagura pointed out in front of the windshield. "See?"

Chihiro turned and looked. There, sitting directly in front of the car's hood, was a stone statue.

It looked like the one she had just seen in the woods. Its chiseled grin seemed to taunt the girls, saying, _You idiots almost crashed into me!_

Kagura shut the car off and stepped out. Chihiro promptly followed.

"This would have sliced the car into two," Kagura said, knocking her fist against the stone hardness of the statue.

"Exactly. We could have died!"

"But we didn't," Kagura pointed out. "Thanks to me. You're welcome."

"I knew I shouldn't have come."

"Oh, stop that. This will be fun." Kagura brushed past the statue and stood before the tunnel that it guarded. "The actual park is just on the other side."

The sun was still making its slow descent behind the horizon, casting the scenery in a muted, orange glow. Shadows were beginning to stretch further out, and they would soon blend completely into the darkness of night.

Maple leaves covered the ground here, and Chihiro watched in a strange fascination as the leaves were blown toward the inside of the tunnel.

Another hit of déjà vu.

"Hey, Kagura. Have we ever been here before?"

"Well, I certainly haven't," Kagura said as she scoped out the area. "Mai is the one who gave me the directions to this place. Why do you ask?"

"I don't know," Chihiro said. "I just keep experiencing something like déjà vu."

"Then that probably means you've definitely never been here."

"What?"

Kagura's face sobered into something serious and calculating, which only happened when she was consulting the depths of her photographic memory.

"The feeling of déjà vu is simply the brain failing to relate a current experience to a past one," Kagura explained, a small degree of her intelligence making its first appearance of the night. "So if you think you've been here before but can't remember when, it's likely you've never been here before, period."

"What I'm experiencing seems a bit more complicated than that." Chihiro shuddered.

"Relax," Kagura said, her tone and expression already back to its usual cheery demeanor. "It's all in your head. Now, come on." She grabbed Chihiro by the hand and marched into the darkness of the tunnel.

Chihiro stumbled in the darkness, grasping her friend's arm in a vise-like grip.

"Ow," Kagura complained. "You're just about cutting off my circulation."

"Sorry," Chihiro muttered. "But how are you able to see?"

"I can't. I'm just walking forward."

"Hold on. There's a flashlight feature on my phone." Chihiro dug in her pockets for her phone.

"No need, my friend," Kagura reassured. The last of the sun's light still managed to seep its way into the end of the tunnel, guiding the pair toward the exit.

They emerged from the other side, which led out to a vast, open plain, the long grass nearly up to the girls' knees. A few random statues – a monk, a toad, another grinning figure – were placed randomly about the sloping landscape. To their right sat two small, decaying buildings, their exterior paint jobs long faded and chipped by the constant breeze. To their left was a stone set of stairs that led up to the first glimpse of the abandoned town. Above, stars began to appear in the purple of the sky that separated day from night.

Though eerie as it all was, it was also beautiful.

"I wonder why this place failed," Chihiro wondered aloud.

"Probably due to exorbitant investment," Kagura answered as she set off for the stairs.

"Huh?"

For the second time of the night, Kagura's expression became cool and pragmatic as she formulated a coherent answer.

"The original owner probably put most of his money into the construction of this park in hopes of receiving the payments back twofold once customers began pouring in." Kagura sighed as if she felt sorry for the owner. "Obviously, this park didn't receive its anticipated income."

"So it was shut down?"

Kagura nodded. "Harder than that guy you rejected last week."

Chihiro blushed. "'That guy' has a name. Tamaki."

"Whatever."

"Anyway," Chihiro said once they reached the top of the stairs. "It's so beautiful here. I don't understand why enough people didn't come here just for the sights."

"The sights?" Kagura scoffed. "Keep in mind that Japan's stock market crashed back in 1989. Wages were reduced dramatically. Who knows if that had anything to do with it?"

"Wow, Kagura." Chihiro was impressed. "It sounds like you know quite a bit about financial history."

Kagura nodded in quiet flattery, eating up the compliment. "I did my research."

"If that's the case, then why did you bring me here? You could have written up your report tonight."

Kagura pulled out her phone. "Visual evidence, remember?"

"Oh, right."

"Now, start snapping!" Kagura commanded. She bounded up the path that led into the town, quickly disappearing from Chihiro's sight.

Chihiro scratched her head in confusion. Kagura was the one who didn't want to come here alone, and now she was hurdling solo off into the sunset.

She pulled out her own phone. She turned and stood at the edge of the stairs, preparing to take a scenic photo of the clock tower they had come from.

_Don't look back._

Chihiro spun around so fast her phone flew out of her hand and clattered against the ground.

She half-expected Kagura to be behind her, but there was no sign of anybody around. There was no source or explanation to the voice she'd just heard.

"Kagura?" she called out into the emptiness.

_Now go... and don't look back._

Chihiro gasped. There it was again. And this time, the image of two, smiling green eyes suddenly appeared in her mind.

This was beyond déjà vu. She'd seen those eyes before. She _knew _them. She'd even dreamed of them on more than one occasion.

But who they belonged to was beyond her.

She didn't like the vibes that were radiating off this place. This mysterious voice was telling her to go and not look back, and she would happily comply. She just had to find Kagura first. And fast.

She scooped her phone off the ground and dialed Kagura's number.

After a few rings, she went straight to voicemail. She grit her teeth in frustration. Instead of leaving a message at the tone, she sprinted right into the town where she had last seen her friend.

"Kagura?" Her voice bounced off the empty shops and vendors, resounding through the streets.

There was no answer.

"Kagura? We have to go," Chihiro tried again as she jogged through the abandoned town.

Still, there was no answer.

A stab of panic began to pump its way through her body. Where could Kagura have gone, and why wasn't she answering?

Chihiro was rounding the corner of a building when she ran straight into somebody's torso. With an audible gasp, she fell straight onto her backside.

"Kagura!" Chihiro exclaimed as she brushed herself off. "Where have you been? I called your cell and you didn't answer."

Chihiro looked up and blanched. This person was definitely not Kagura.

He stood before her, tall and proud. He appeared to be about nineteen or twenty years old, not much older than her. He wore expensive-looking leather shoes, a pair of dark-wash jeans, and a collared black t-shirt. His arms were folded across his chest as he peered both curiously and condescendingly down at Chihiro.

His facial features are what caught the most attention, however. Even in the dimming sunlight, she could see that his messy hair was an astonishing hue of bright red, the kind that only came in artificial hair dyes. And those eyes that seemed to judge her entirety from head to toe were practically glowing neon yellow - he had to be wearing colored contact lenses. Natural eye color just didn't come in that shade.

Mr. False-hair-false-eyes continued to watch Chihiro without uttering a single word, and Chihiro suppressed a shiver of uncertainty at his sudden presence.

She stood up and tentatively approached this stranger. "I'm sorry for running into you. I didn't know that anybody else would be here."

Mr. False arched an eyebrow at her apology, still saying nothing.

Chihiro fidgeted under his gaze. "Um, you haven't happened to see a blonde girl run by, have you? She's about my height and age." She waited for an answer but was met with more silence. "I'm assuming that's a no. Well, I'd appreciate it if you could keep an eye out. If you see her, could you tell her that -"

He snorted. Something in what she said was funny to him.

Chihiro bit her lip. "Is something wrong?"

Mr. False shook his head in disbelief. "Why would I waste my time in helping you?"

Chihiro raised her eyebrows, taken aback by his unjustified rudeness. "Because it's the nice thing to do?"

He exhaled sharply. "Your kind always takes and never gives."

"I only asked if you've seen my friend."

He ignored her. "I'd love to see the day when a human helps me."

"Excuse me?"

"If anything, you should be bowing down to me. Don't you know when you're in the presence of a higher being?"

Either this guy was so indulged in his peculiar appearance that he sincerely thought he wasn't human, or he was one hell of an actor.

"What are you doing here, anyways?" Mr. False continued. "This place is forbidden to the likes of you."

"Really?" Chihiro snapped. "Gee, I didn't know this ghost town of an amusement park was owned by an arrogant redhead."

He didn't want to play nice? Fine. But he'd better expect to receive the same amount of maliciousness that he was showing her.

"What did you say?" he demanded, having the nerve to look offended. "Is a human actually showing me a form of disrespect?"

"Has anyone ever told you that you're still a human even if you dye your hair and wear contacts?" Chihiro asked, placing her hands on her hips. "Enough with the act already."

"You think these are fake?" Mr. False gestured to his hair and eyes. "These are all natural."

One day, this guy would either find himself on the grand stage of a_ Broadway _production, or inside the barred room of a mental hospital.

Chihiro personally thought the latter option was more likely to happen. "You're insane."

"Could it be that you're just attracted to my good looks? I know that humans show their affection in different ways."

Chihiro's jaw dropped. "What?"

Mr. False nodded. "I knew it. You humans are suckers for beauty. It's sad, really."

Chihiro waited for the punchline of his joke, but he was being completely serious as far as she could see.

She fought the urge to puke. She had never met a more self-entitled, actor-wannabe of a brat in her whole entire life. There were a few runner-ups, like the spoiled kids who attended her town's elite private school, but this guy beat them by a landslide in the department of arrogance.

"I think it's safe to say that this sunny personality of yours negates any other aspect of your entire being," Chihiro spat, her voice dripping with venom. "I am so not attracted to you in any way, shape, or form. Get over yourself."

Mr. False shook his head. "That's not possible. My genes are far superior than yours. Perfect genes equal perfect looks, right?" Mr. False threw up his hands in a gesture that said, _What can you do?_ "It's how my kind ensures survival."

She couldn't believe this guy. So he remained mute when asked about Kagura, but once his appearance was up for negotiation, he couldn't close his mouth. Unbelievable.

"And what is your kind, might I ask?" Chihiro cocked her head to the side in feigned curiosity. "Is it a group of audacious, egotistical jerks who step all over those who cross their paths? Or is it a ward of escaped schizophrenic patients with no real grasp of the real world?"

He blinked at her. "You're a stubborn one, aren't you?"

"Yeah? Well, I'd rather be stubborn than an arrogant son-of-a-"

"Chihiro!"

She turned around in time to see Kagura running toward her. "Kagura! Where were you?"

Kagura stopped when she reached Chihiro. "I was taking pictures on the other side of this town. I came looking for you when I heard you shouting my name."

"Didn't you get my call?"

Kagura displayed a sheepish grin. "Yeah, I kind of ignored that."

"Kagura!"

"I'm sorry! It's just that I was in the middle of taking shots of this really big, red building. You should go see it – it's gorgeous!"

"Not now," Chihiro said, suddenly remembering why she had called Kagura in the first place. "We have to go."

"Why? What's the rush?"

"I'll explain later."

"Did you get any pictures?" Kagura asked.

"What? No."

"What do you mean, 'no'?" Kagura demanded. "What have you been doing this whole time?"

"Well, first I ran through the streets of this place trying to find you, and then I discovered this jerk." Chihiro pointed behind her.

Kagura peered around her. "Um, who?"

Chihiro looked back. Mr. False was nowhere to be seen.

"How is this possible?" She looked all around. Nobody just disappeared like that. "He was just here!"

"Who was?"

"That guy I met!"

"Chihiro, when I was running up to you, I didn't see anybody."

"Seriously?" Chihiro asked. "You didn't see that guy with the red hair and yellow eyes?"

There was a pause.

"I think it's time we started heading home," Kagura said as she began making her way out of the town.

* * *

><p><strong>AN Ah, I just loved writing Mr. False into the story (just in case you didn't already guess this, "Mr. False" is not this guy's real name). I had my friend read over this chapter, and she expressed her concern over what Mr. False is. Though I didn't want to give anything away, I feel the need to say that he is, in fact, NOT a vampire; that's what my friend thought he was, and I didn't want readers thinking the same thing since that could be a major turnoff for some. **

**Anyway, thanks for reading!**


	2. Into the Fray

"You must have been hallucinating," Kagura said, her expression calculatingly serious as she recalled Chihiro's behavior in the park just minutes prior.

"You really think so?" Chihiro asked, somewhat incredulous. The guy she had met seemed so real, considering she was still fuming over their short-lived conversation.

"It's the only thing that makes sense," Kagura insisted as she merged the car out into the main road. "I mean, you said you tried to come find me after you began hearing voices, right?"

Chihiro shuddered just thinking about it. "Yeah."

"And I didn't see anybody when I found you in that town."

"But that guy felt so real. It's hard to pass his existence off as an illusion."

"Trust me, many people are fooled by hallucinations." The car rolled to a stoplight. "Hallucinations can affect all five of a person's senses. Even I've been fooled by them before."

"Really?"

"Mm-hm," Kagura admitted, almost sheepishly. "I recently learned in chemistry that consuming large amounts of caffeine runs a higher risk of auditory hallucinations. And you know how I love my coffee..."

"Yeah, but why was _I_ hallucinating," Chihiro asked.

"For starters, you're exhausted. I practically dragged you out of bed, remember?" Kagura gave a short laugh at the recent memory. "And I think it's safe that everyone in our grade – you included – has been stressing over schoolwork this entire semester."

"That still doesn't explain why I was seeing and hearing things."

"Yes, it does. Hallucinations can be caused by both exhaustion and anxiety, both of which you were experiencing when we arrived at the park." The light turned green, and the car drove on. "I don't think it's anything serious."

"Are you sure I'm not just going crazy?"

Kagura grinned. "Well, I always knew you were crazy. But in the psychological sense? I don't think so."

"Gee, thanks."

"Seriously, though. I wouldn't worry about it too much. Everybody is capable of hallucinating under the right conditions, mentally-stable or not." Kagura threw her friend a side-long glance. "Just get a good night's sleep when you get home, okay? If you're still seeing and hearing things by tomorrow morning, I'd go consult a doctor."

Chihiro nodded. "Yup." She turned to gaze absently out the window.

She was only half-comforted by Kagura's diagnosis. Perhaps she'd be fully content with the excuse that she was hallucinating if it wasn't for that brief image of those deep, green eyes. She withheld the information from Kagura that she knew she'd seen them before. She didn't know why, but there was a certain intimacy in the depths of those eyes that Chihiro just didn't want to share.

The only question that stood was: who did they belong to? As much as she thought about those eyes, she just couldn't pinpoint their owner.

The car slowed as it turned down Chihiro's street.

"Alright," Kagura said as she parked the sedan outside the Ogino estate. "Here we are."

Chihiro unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the door. "Thanks for the trip to _Wonderland."_

"You're welcome. Thanks for keeping me company."

"Sorry I didn't take any pictures."

Kagura waved her off. "It's fine. I got more than enough all by myself."

Chihiro wasn't finished. "Also, sorry that I cut the journey short."

Kagura laughed. "No, it's okay. If it weren't for you, we wouldn't have made it out of the park before nighttime; we could have been spirited away to another world!"

Chihiro rolled her eyes. "Yeah, right. You're just trying to make me feel better."

"Maybe." Kagura began to pull away. "Text me how you're feeling tomorrow."

"I will."

She trudged up her lawn and to the front door, finally realizing just how tired she was. The prior adrenaline she had experienced during her argument with a guy who supposedly never existed had done a fine job of masking her exhaustion.

"I'm home," she called out as she entered the door.

"Chihiro," her mother greeted from the kitchen. "Sorry I never responded to your message - I just saw it."

"It's alright. Where's dad?" Chihiro asked as she slipped off her shoes.

"Still at work, but he should be here soon. What did you and Kagura end up doing?"

"We had to take pictures to visually support an essay of hers." Chihiro walked into the kitchen and sat at the table.

"Oh? Of what?" her mother inquired as she stirred a pot of something steaming.

"You know that abandoned amusement park just up the road from here?"

"Of course. We've been there before."

Chihiro stared at her mother. "What?"

"I said, we've been there before -"

"No, I heard you," Chihiro said quickly. "But you said _we've _been there. Does that include me?"

"You don't remember?" Yuko asked as she turned to look at her daughter. "The day we moved here, your father took a wrong turn and we winded up at that park."

This was new. "Did we get out of the car?"

"Yes. I insisted on just trying to find our new house, but both you and your father wanted to explore the place." Yuko smiled a bit.

"Where did we go?"

"Just through part of that old town. We looked at a few run-down buildings and left, and the whole visit took about fifteen minutes." She paused. "What brought this on?"

Chihiro shrugged. "It felt kind of strange when I went with Kagura today."

"It's weird that you say that," Yuko said. "Since it was strange the last time we were there, too."

"What was strange about it?" Chihiro pressed. Did they hear voices or see people that weren't really there?

"We got back to the car, and it was covered in dust, as if we had been gone for days!"

"I feel like I would have remembered that."

"Well, that was more than seven years ago," Yuko said as she turned to continue dinner preparations. "You were very young."

This revelation certainly explained the constant feeling of familiarity she'd felt throughout the night. _ But she had to know..._

"Was there anyone else at the park when we visited?" _Maybe somebody with green eyes?_

"Of course not," Yuko answered. "The place had been abandoned for decades, if not centuries. We were the only people there, from what I could see."

"Yeah, silly me," Chihiro mumbled, thrust further into the mystery of those green eyes. She stood up. "I'm going to bed."

"To bed? It's not even seven o'clock yet. And you haven't eaten dinner."

"I'm tired and I'm not hungry." She began ascending the stairs.

"Chihiro!" Yuko protested.

"Mom, school's been taking quite a toll out of me lately," Chihiro explained, pausing mid-step on the staircase. "I just want more than a few hours of sleep tonight."

Yuko hesitated. "Well, you have been working hard this whole semester..."

"Exactly. Goodnight."

She promptly entered her room and shut the door. No way was she telling her parents that she'd been hallucinating all night – she'd wake up as the next patient on the _Dr. Phil_ show.

Kagura was right – hallucinating or not, Chihiro needed a good night's sleep. By the time Akio Ogino walked through the door, his daughter was dreaming steadily about a certain pair of green eyes.

* * *

><p>Chihiro spent her Sunday morning doing absolutely nothing.<p>

She'd texted Kagura to tell her that she felt much better, but Kagura only replied with a terse "K," indicating that she was most likely in the process of finishing her economics project.

Yuko and Akio didn't work on Sundays, so they spent the first few hours of the day lounging around the house like their daughter. But while they passed the time with sewing kits and newspapers, Chihiro allowed herself to be consumed by her thoughts as she gazed out her bedroom window.

Those damned green eyes. Whose were they, and why was she so obsessed with them? There was definitely more to them than what her mind was allowing her to remember. Nobody simply forgot who eyes like those belonged to.

She groaned, hating the confines of her own, limited memory.

She didn't know how or why, but those eyes were somehow connected to the amusement park. That is where she had seen them, so that is where she would probably be able to uncover their mysterious origin.

Finally fed up with sitting in the same spot on her bed, she stood up and stretched, cracking her back in the process. She grabbed the sparkly, purple hair tie off her dresser and twisted her hair into a side-braid before heading downstairs.

"Dad, can I borrow the car?" Chihiro asked as she walked into living room.

"Sure," Akio said, putting down his newspaper next to him on the sofa. "Where are you going?"

"Uh..."

Chihiro was certain that going to an abandoned amusement park just to find details on a set of green eyes that only she'd seen in her mind was not something her father should know. She herself wasn't so proud of it.

"I left my phone charger at Kagura's house, and she's too busy to drive it over herself right now." It was a typical excuse, and she hoped it sounded legitimate enough for her father not to suspect anything.

"Kagura's the girl that likes coffee, right?"

"Yeah."

"Does your mother know you're leaving the house?"

"No, but you do. And this'll only take a few minutes."

"Well, okay. Be safe," Akio said as he dug his keys from his pocket and tossed them at Chihiro. "Just call or text if you're going to do anything else."

Chihiro caught them. "Thanks, Dad. I'll be back soon."

She stepped outside, the brisk air immediately biting at her ears and nose. It was just past noon, and the sun was high and brightly shining.

She unlocked her father's silver Acura and started it up. Sitting in the driver's seat, she took a moment to recall the course Kagura had driven the previous night. It wasn't too difficult considering the distance between where she currently was and her intended destination was minimal. Satisfied enough with her mental list of directions, she pulled the car out of the driveway and down the road.

Now that she'd gotten more than twelve hours of sleep and had the light of day to guide her, she wasn't afraid to return to the park. She didn't expect to miraculously run into the person with the green eyes, but she did hope to find more clues as to who he might be.

After a few minutes of driving, she took the left into the familiar dirt road, and was soon surrounded by a forest of trees and occasional statues. She was both relieved and disappointed that those strange waves of déjà vu didn't interrupt her focus, and she easily stopped the car once the tunnel came into view.

She stepped out of the car and thirty-two paces later, she was standing before the grassy plains again.

She began to walk gingerly up the stone steps, waiting for the image of the green eyes to hit her as suddenly as it did yesterday. But by the time she made it to the top, nothing had happened.

Retracing her steps from last night, she moved to the edge of the stairs and gazed out at the clock tower. She pulled out her phone and posed like she was preparing to take a photo.

Still, nothing.

Despite what Kagura had told her, Chihiro couldn't help but feel that she was going a little insane. After all, who went to an amusement park just to try to see a completely mental image? Though, it wasn't like the eyes were solely a part of her anxiety-motivated hallucinations. She'd thought about them long before yesterday, but had somehow forgotten about them until that point.

But how could she have forgotten them in the first place when she felt such a strong force between her and their mysterious owner?

It didn't make any sense.

__CRASH!__

The sound immediately pulled Chihiro from her thoughts.

She rubbed the heels of her hands against her temples, hoping that she wasn't hallucinating again.

_CRASH!_

There it was again, this time coming from somewhere behind the many rundown buildings.

"Hello?" she called out in the direction of the town. "Anybody here?"

No answer.

It was against her better judgement to go investigate a potentially imagined noise that was coming right from the heart of an abandoned town, but curiosity outweighed fear. Still, she gripped her phone in her hand as a cautionary measure as she set off for the town, just in case she walked in on a homicide and had to speed dial the police.

She peeked around the corner of a building to look down the empty street. With nothing out of the ordinary in sight, she moved on to the next street.

She was just about to round the corner when a huge crash rocked the nearest building. She jumped at the sound and ran for cover behind the neighboring shop. Glass windows shattered into a million pieces and hunks of debris rained down on the street. By the time the dust cleared, the shop that had been hit sported a huge, crater-sized hole in its exterior.

She couldn't help the shocked gasp that escaped her mouth when she saw him stumble from the ruined shop.

Mr. False.

His entire being was covered in dust, but his red hair and yellow eyes were unmistakeable. A red gash had appeared just above his left brow with a thin trickle of blood flowing down to his chin. He supported himself on his knees, his breaths coming out harsh and ragged. He stared fixedly straight ahead, looking as if he were waiting for something to appear.

Either Chihiro's hallucinations were stronger than ever, or she was witnessing something unexplainable.

The guy was just thrown through a _concrete building. _Not even an ego as thick as his could have saved a life, yet there he was, injured but breathing.

Chihiro quickly dialed Kagura's number. The phone service in the park was limited, but still luckily available.

"This better be important," Kagura hissed after the third ring. The weak reception caused a bit of static around her voice. "I'm two paragraphs away from finishing. What do you want?"

"Kagura, this is important," Chihiro whispered frantically, keeping her eyes on Mr. False.

"What is it? And where are you? I can't hear you all that well."

"Listen, I have a question. How do you know when you're hallucinating?" Thankfully, Mr. False didn't seem to hear the rushed phone conversation that was happening just a few feet away from where he stood. His eyes were still fixed on something in front of him.

"Where did that question come from?" Kagura demanded.

"Just answer it. Please."

"Wait, are you still hallucinating?"

"Yes. No. I'm not sure. Just answer it!"

"Oh, fine."

There was a pause on the other end, and Chihiro could almost see her friend's demeanor morphing into that of a serious one.

"It's all about perception," Kagura finally answered, her voice pedantically calm. "You just have to put sensory input into plausible context."

"What does that even mean?" Though she was grateful for her friend's encyclopedia of a mind, Chihiro hated it when Kagura explained things that only Einstein would understand.

"It means, have a normal understanding of the world," Kagura said. "Like, if you're seeing a bunch of kittens flying around in the sky, you should know through sheer common sense that it isn't real."

"But what if I'm seeing something that can be a part of the real world?"

"Like...?"

"Like a guy with dyed red hair and colored contacts."

"Red hair and colored contacts? Are you -" Kagura gasped with understanding. "It's that guy you thought you saw yesterday, isn't it? Red hair, yellow eyes? You _are _hallucinating!"

Chihiro gulped. "I'm not so sure I am anymore."

Kagura sighed. "Listen, Chihiro. I thought I told you to go see a doctor if you still -"

"Come get me, you damned bastards!" Mr. False screamed into the air, his arms out as if anticipating a fight. "I'll finish you in one blow!"

There was a moment of complete silence on the other end of the phone.

"Chihiro?" Kagura asked. "Who was that I just heard?"

"You _heard _that?" Chihiro asked, shocked.

"How could I not? Whoever that was sure is screaming up a storm."

"If you can hear him, then that means he _must _bereal," Chihiro said, relieved that she wasn't crazy, but distressed since that meant she was in the presence of intense paranormality. "I was never hallucinating in the first place!"

"Who's real?" Kagura urged. "And where are you?"

"Thanks for your help, Kagura. Really. I'll be right home."

"No -"

Chihiro abruptly ended the call. She meant it when she said that she'd be right home. No way was she staying any longer near the jerk who'd somehow survived being catapulted into a building.

That's when she saw them.

Large, creeping shadows moving right through the thick walls of buildings and toward Mr. False. Though these shadows had absolutely no sources to base their entities on, they were clearly moving of their own accord. There were about eight individual dark "blobs" as far as Chihiro could see, and each had a pair of holes at the highest point of its body, looking suspiciously like eyes.

Mr. False grinned smugly at their arrival.

One of the shadows shrank into itself, and Mr. False only had a few seconds to jump out of the way before the thing coiled up like a slinky and shot through the air. Despite the fact that it was previously gliding through walls like a ghost, the shadow hit a building full-force and caused more rubble to spray to the ground.

Before Mr. False had time to recover, the shadow's seven remaining buddies too coiled their bodies and sprang through the air. Mr. False narrowly rolled out of the way as the shadows flew past him, and they kicked up clouds of dirt from the road upon their collisions.

By this point, Chihiro was wishing that this other-worldly fight scene was just a figment of her imagination. It certainly would have made a lot more sense. She could explain the logics behind Mr. False's existence, but as for those shadow-like things? Not so much.

She saw something dark move just outside of her peripheral vision, and she hesitantly turned her head for a more precise observation.

There, crawling along the ground, was another shadow. It seemed not to notice nor care for her presence as it stealthily made its way toward Mr. False, who currently had his back to it.

Chihiro swallowed the lump that had begun to form in her throat. In a matter of seconds, Mr. False would be no more.

She gripped the sides of her head, torn between what she should do. Making a run for it would ensure her safety, but what about Mr. False? While he was the biggest jerk she had ever had the displeasure of meeting, did he really deserve to die by the hands of unsightly, shadowy blobs?

Well, maybe.

She shook her head, trying to clear her head. Those kind of thoughts were not what her parents encouraged.

Yes, Mr. False was a jerk, but he was currently weak and injured. Plus, there were eight – nine if she counted the crawling one – shadows against him, and he was completely on his own unless she stepped in to lend a helping hand.

With his undivided attention on only eight of the enemies, Mr. False was susceptible to the ninth one that was coiling for the attack.

With her mind made up, Chihiro ran past the shadow and right into the fray.

"Look out!" She dived for Mr. False and brought him straight to the ground as the shadow leaped right over their heads. It landed unceremoniously against the dirt in a splat formation before straightening itself out.

Mr. False looked down at Chihiro in unmasked surprise. "You're that stubborn girl..."

Before she could call him very unpleasant adjectives in response, he lifted her up by the waist and leaped a few meters back, avoiding another attack.

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

Chihiro slapped his hands away. "Excuse me?"

"I told you that your kind isn't supposed to be here!"

"If I wasn't here, you'd be dead!" she said, moving aggressively into his face. Was he seriously that ungrateful?

"Are you serious? I was about to unleash my best attack when you flew in out of nowhere and knocked me to the ground!"

"You're welcome!"

"You little...!"

Mr. False looked up in time to see another approaching attack.

He scooped Chihiro up in his arms and leaped back another few meters. He immediately set her down once they were within a reasonably safe distance.

"Go!" he commanded. "Get out of here!"

She stayed put. "You don't get to tell me what to do."

"Are you a child? I'm trying to save your life!"

"I'm trying to save yours!"

"Don't make me laugh. You think a weak human like you can do anything?"

"I am _not _weak! You're the one who keeps running away from those things!" She pointed at the shadows.

"Because I now have your pathetic ass to cover!"

"I never asked for your help."

"And I never asked for yours, either! Now, get going!" He turned back to the fight, and she stubbornly did the same.

Though Mr. False and Chihiro's bantering was brief, it took up enough time for all nine shadows to launch a simultaneous attack. The pair looked up in time to find themselves right in the path of a massive, dark cloud that was rapidly approaching their way.

Mr. False cursed under his breath and made a reach for Chihiro. Before he could so much as touch her, a bright, purple light shone abruptly in the midst of the battle.

He shielded his eyes against the intensity of the light, but he still managed to squint one eye open to take in the scene.

"This is..."

The light was coming from the girl's hair. More specifically, from her hair tie. It managed to envelope the whole street in a wave of unnatural luminosity. It was warm but not uncomfortably so, as it chased away the cold traces of autumn for the briefest of moments. The shadows, momentarily stunned by the light, seemed to vaporize into the air as a result of the splendor.

The light continued to linger for a few more beats before dimming back to the mellow sparkle of the hair tie.

Throughout the whole endeavor, Chihiro had stood wide-eyed in a mixture of confusion and shock. She'd always vaguely wondered where she'd gotten this purple hair tie from. It looked like she now had another mystery on her hands.

"Hey."

An thumb and middle finger snapped in front of her face for attention, and only then did she remember that she was not alone.

Chihiro blinked up at Mr. False. "That light... Did you do that?"

He scoffed. "Of course not. You don't see me wearing magical hair accessories, do you?"

She ignored his jibe. "Why were those things attacking you?"

"They were angry because I dined and dashed." There was no shame whatsoever in his voice.

"From where?"

"From here."

"Here? As in, this town?" Surely, he was just kidding. This place was a ghost town.

"Where else?"

"That's not possible. There are no running restaurants in this place."

"Yes, there are. And I can show you, too. One is just a few blocks away." He pointed down the street. "They were serving the Japanese equivalent of a Thanksgiving feast. It was _awesome."_

Chihiro looked up at him. "Are you sure you weren't just hallucinating?"

"What?"

"Nothing." Chihiro looked around, making sure that the shadows hadn't returned. "What were those things, anyway?"

"Those things were what made the food."

If the circumstances were normal, Chihiro would have laughed in his face. A group of blobby shadow creatures running a restaurant in a dead man's land? That just sounded impossibly ridiculous. But if anything, this seemed to be the most plausible concept she'd encountered all day, considering what she'd experienced over the last ten minutes.

"Why did you freeload off of them?" Chihiro asked. "They could have killed you!"

"Careful, there." He raised his hands. "You almost sound like you're worried about me."

She folded her arms, unimpressed.

He ran a hand through his hair. "Since I'm a pretty high-ranking individual, I figured I was allowed to eat, no charge included. I guess I was wrong."

"Oh, dear lord..." There he went again about how great he was.

"And they wouldn't have killed me. They just wanted to take me to their boss, who's known for turning thieves into pigs. That's a fate I'll never accept."

Chihiro rubbed her hands over her eyes. Nothing was making any sense, and Mr. False here wasn't helping. She had to go home.

She looked up and screamed. "What the hell?!"

"What?!"

Chihiro pointed at the sky. "When did that happen?!"

Just minutes ago, the sun had been shining high and happy against the day-blue sky. Now, the sun was dangerously close against the horizon, the entirety of the sky nearly black with night. A splattering of stars shone overhead, twinkling innocently down below.

Chihiro clawed her phone out of her pocket. The time read 6:44 pm.

She stared at the numbers on her phone. "How is this possible?"

Mr. False shrugged. "With the amount of magic you just released, this was bound to happen."

She turned on him. "For once, can you _please _say something that makes the least bit of sense?!"

"I am making sense. You humans are just slow."

"I am not slow. I just want a logical explanation on how day turned to night in the blink of an eye!"

Closing his eyes, Mr. False pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger. "Congratulations. You may be the most annoying human I've ever met."

She opened her mouth to voice a witty comeback, but he held up a hand.

"Whatever you're about to say, don't. I'm being nice here, so don't make me change my mind."

Chihiro blinked at him. "How are you being nice?"

He threw her a semi-genuine smile. "I'm getting you out of here. You don't want to fade away, do you?"

She stared at him uncomprehendingly.

He took a deep breath and slowly moved his arms out, palms facing up. A few seconds later, a pair of bat-like wings unsheathed from his shoulder blades and fanned out at his sides.

Chihiro took an unsteady step back, but the surprises didn't end there.

Two, sloping horns grew from his head, breaking the skin at his temples. A long, purplish tail with a heart-shaped tip emerged from his lower back, whipping out like a sword before settling at his heels. His fingernails grew inches out, their tips pointed out like claws.

Chihiro stared. "You're..."

Mr. False raised a questioning eyebrow. "Yes?"

"You're not human."

He rolled his eyes. "Like I said, you humans sure are slow."

* * *

><p><strong>AN I didn't realize how long this chapter would be. Because there's just so much, I'm still looking over this, but at the same time I just couldn't wait any longer to post it. So within the next twenty-four hours, there may or may not be a few changes added to this chapter.**

**Anyway, it looks like "Mr. False" and Chihiro are becoming a kind of close. But fear not, for this is a (Spoiler) Chihiro and Haku story. Thanks for reading!**


	3. Act of Kindness

**A/N Finally finished this chapter! I've been writing it since I posted the second one, but I kept changing practically everything about it. It's a little shorter and slower than the first two, but I still hope you like it nonethless.**

* * *

><p>"Put me down!" Chihiro shrieked, landing a perfect punch into Mr. False's perfect face.<p>

"OW!" Mr. False promptly dropped the thrashing girl onto the ground.

Chihiro scooted back from him, feeling horribly nauseous.

Mr. False brought a clawed hand to his throbbing nose. "That hurt, woman!"

"Good! Let that be a lesson to you to never touch me again!"

"Seriously?" Mr. False asked. "You're not going to thank me?"

"No!"

Mr. False glared at her. "Why are you humans so ungrateful?"

Chihiro glared right back at him. "What exactly am I supposed to be grateful for? The fact that you're not human? Or the fact that you suddenly picked me up and _flew into the sky!"_

"What, did you think these wings were just for show?" Mr. False flapped his wings behind him for emphasis.

"I hope you know that I have two legs of my own and could have simply walked out of the town."

Mr. False shook his head. "You wouldn't have made it in time. The doors to your world were almost completely closed."

Chihiro groaned and placed her head between her knees, trying to ease the dizziness that had always affected her every time she found herself at a higher-than-sea-level altitude.

Not thirty seconds ago, Mr. False had indeed scooped Chihiro up bridal-style and flew her outside of the park. She'd practically dug nail marks into his neck as she clung against him for her dear life, trying not to look down at the shrinking ground. And though she was safely back to the side of her father's car, the motion sickness from her unintentional flight was still fresh. Not to mention she was still trying to process the fact that she was in the company of someone who wasn't exactly human.

Chihiro more or less lived by the motto: _seeing is believing._ She refused to believe the genuineness of any rumor until she tested its authenticity herself. Fairytale creatures were simply a myth in her mind, and she had a genius of a friend to back up her point of view. No amount of fiction could compete against the logical standpoint of Kagura.

But now that the genius herself had actually _heard _this supposed illusion of a man, there was no way he was imaginary. And since he wasn't imaginary, Chihiro had no other choice than to believe that the wings and horns on him were real. He really wasn't human.

"You're looking kinda green," Mr. False commented from his eternal spot in the peanut gallery. "Are you gonna throw up?"

"Shut up," Chihiro mumbled, struggling to get to her feet. "I have to get home."

Mr. False folded his arms. "Don't expect me to give you a ride."

"Don't worry, I wasn't," Chihiro said as she dug her car keys from the inside of her jacket. No way was she hitching another flight on _Jerk Airlines. _She looked up at him. "You're not looking so great yourself."

"You're lying," Mr. False said. "I always look great."

"I'm not talking about your looks, you idiot."

He still had a gash above his left eye with a dust-encrusted trail of blood leading to his chin. His forehead was covered in a thin sheen of sweat, no doubt caused by the earlier fight. His face was slightly flushed, and Chihiro was just realizing that he was shivering against the cold air.

She hesitated. Was she really willing to lend a helping hand to this guy for a second time? He didn't seem particularly thankful for her intervention during the fight. Besides, she didn't know what he was. Before today, she didn't think the world had the capacity to house anything supernatural. She didn't know what he was capable of.

But he did save her from being crushed by those shadow creatures before telling her to leave for her own good. A part of her mind told her that if he wanted her dead, he'd have already killed, eaten, and digested her long ago.

Taking another look at him, she couldn't help but feel pity for him as he subtly folded his wings around his shoulders to keep warm. He may be arrogant, but he wasn't evil.

"I hope I don't regret this later," Chihiro muttered.

"What did you say?"

She pointed her key remote at the car. The car's lights flashed twice to signal that it was unlocked.

Walking to the driver's side, she looked back at Mr. False and jerked her chin to the passenger's side. "You coming or what?"

Mr. False looked at her in surprise, not completely void of gratitude.

Still, he hesitated.

She tapped her fingernails against the car door impatiently. "What are you waiting for?"

"Where are we going?" he countered, starting to inch his way toward the vehicle.

"My house."

"Why?"

"So I can treat your injuries."

He paused, his expression suddenly confused, as if she was suddenly speaking another language.

Chihiro didn't like it. "What?"

Strangely, he averted his eyes under Chihiro's gaze. "Nothing." His horns, wings, tail, and claws all retracted into his body until he was passable as a human being. He climbed into the passenger seat.

Chihiro climbed in after him, starting the car up and blasting the heat on.

Mr. False stared at the dashboard, awestruck. "I've never been in one of these things."

Chihiro threw a glance at him. "You really aren't human."

"I thought we already went over this." He held his hands out to the air vent.

"I know," Chihiro said as she turned the car around. "I'm just still getting used to it."

They drove in a few minutes of silence, which suited just fine with Chihiro. What kind of idle chat could have been initiated, anyway? Should she have asked how long his _Wolverine _claws were? Or if his tail ever got in the way of his waistbands?

She shook her head. She didn't have to know anything more about him. She'd take him into her house, treat his minor injuries, then send him back out into the world and hope to never see him again. She was sure that she'd discovered more of the paranormal realm in one night than anyone else would have in a lifetime.

The car was just pulling down her street when she slammed on the brakes.

Mr. False nearly launched his head through the windshield. "What are you doing?"

"My parents are home," Chihiro recalled, the blood draining from her face.

"So?"

"I don't want them to see you!"

"And why not?"

"Isn't it obvious? Look at you! You're covered in sweat, dust, and blood, and I don't want to have to think of an explanation as to who you are." Chihiro bit her lip, frustrated.

"Why is this such a big deal?" Mr. False asked as he looked at himself in the rearview mirror. "Just tell them I'm a long-lost friend of yours who had a nasty fall."

"That could work... if you had a different personality," Chihiro said. "I don't want you waltzing into my home and declare to my parents that you are a higher being than their lowly human selves."

Mr. False shook his head. "I wouldn't do that."

Chihiro stared at him. "That's exactly what you did to me. Yesterday. When I ran into you."

"That's because you were only one human. One human can't possibly expose my entire race since it's so easy for his own kind to doubt his claims."

"Is that why you disappeared when my friend came for me?"

"Actually, I was going to leave anyway. Your friend just happened to come at the exact moment I finally did."

Chihiro rubbed her hand across her face. "How am I supposed to get you to my room? There's no way we'd be able to sneak past them undetected."

"Do we really have to go to your house?"

"I can't think of anywhere else. You have a better idea?"

He shook his head. "No. But how many floors does your house have?"

"Two," she said, her eyebrows drawing together in confusion.

"Is your room on the second floor?"

"Yes..."

"Then it's simple." Mr. False nodded in satisfaction. "I'll just fly there."

Chihiro let the idea sink in. Given the circumstances, it wasn't a bad idea, and she couldn't think of a reason why it wouldn't work.

"Fine," Chihiro said as she eased off the brake. "Just don't make too much noise, and don't let the neighbors see. I don't want them thinking the gates of hell have opened up."

"Yes, ma'am." Mr. False mockingly saluted her.

She stopped the car in front of her house and stepped outside. She waited until Mr. False was out before pointing to her window.

"My room is right there, and the window should be unlocked."

His line of vision followed her finger and he nodded. "I'll be waiting."

Chihiro walked quickly up her lawn, not sure she wanted to see Mr. False break out his wings again. Still, she heard the gentle beat of his wings as he took flight above her.

"I'm home," she called as she stepped into the warmth of her house. It seemed like she had just been here minutes ago.

"Chihiro!" Her mother came rushing to the entrance. "What is the matter with you?"

"Seriously, Chihiro." Her father joined the scene. "You said you'd call to let us know if you did anything else, but you never did. This isn't like you."

"Uh..." She had forgotten that her departure from home was supposed to have been only a few minutes long. How was she supposed to explain that for her, the day came and went faster than her car could drive?

"We were worried sick," her mother said, placing her hands on her hips.

"I'm sorry," Chihiro apologized. "I got a little sidetracked..."

"You could have at least answered our calls, though," Akio said. "We called you twice and you never picked up."

"I'm sorry," Chihiro repeated, tilting her head down in a gesture that suggested she was genuinely remorseful. What else could she do or say?

Yuko shook her head at her daughter. "You're lucky that we called Kagura's house."

"What? Kagura?"

"Yes. Did she not tell you we called?"

"Um... no." Where was this conversation headed?

"That's weird. I thought she would pass the message on to you. But maybe not." Yuko sighed. "Well, she let us know that you had decided to stay over for a few hours, which we would have been fine with had you not ignored our calls."

Chihiro blinked. It looked like Kagura had already thought of an excuse for her.

"As parents, we worried that something bad had happened to you instead," Akio added.

"I'm sorry," Chihiro said for the third time, rolling with Kagura's story. "I thought I had left my phone charger at her house, but it turns out it wasn't there. I was going to come back home when Kagura begged me to hang out with her, so that's what I did; I guess I lost track of time. And since I haven't been able to charge my phone lately, it died, so I wasn't able to call you."

"Oh." The parental anger that had momentarily caused such tension between mother and child was suddenly lifted from the room. "Why didn't you just say that before?"

Chihiro shrugged. "I was warming up to it."

A part of Chihiro felt horribly guilty for lying, especially to her parents. She didn't lie to her parents often, yet she had certainly started out that way ever since the morning.

"I see." Yuko smiled a bit. "I should have known you had a valid excuse to all this. Sorry we resorted to immediately yelling at you before hearing you out."

Inwardly, Chihiro cringed as her guilt increased. Her lie was making her parents apologize for nothing. "It's fine."

"Well," Akio said. "Now that that's all settled, why don't we go start dinner?"

"Agreed." Yuko started for the kitchen. "Chihiro, why don't you go wash up? And when you're done, come back down to set the table."

"On it." Chihiro was only too willing to leave. Being scolded by her parents before lying straight to their faces didn't exactly make Chihiro daughter of the year. Besides, she had business to take care of, and hopefully this certain business had made it into her room with his arrogant mouth kept shut.

She pulled out her phone as she swiftly made her way up the stairs. Strangely enough, there was a message on the screen alerting her to thirteen missed calls. Why she hadn't seen the message in the park, she didn't know. Two of the calls were from her home phone, and the remaining eleven were from Kagura.

She briskly walked past her room, heading for the hall closet where the first-aid kit was kept. As she searched for it, her phone buzzed.

She checked the screen. Kagura was calling.

She braced herself for Round Two. "Hello?"

"What's wrong with you?" Kagura hissed.

"Nice to hear from you too, Kagura."

"Shut up! What was all that earlier today?" Kagura demanded. "You can't call me to ask if you're hallucinating, then hang up right after I hear somebody screaming in the background. The entire conversation sounded like something you'd hear in a horror movie."

Chihiro let out a slow, long breath. "Yeah, I know. Sorry about that."

"I called you, what? Ten times?"

"Eleven."

"Eleven times! And you didn't pick up once." Kagura let out a disgusted grunt. "I was beginning to think you were dead, especially when your parents called my house to ask if I knew where you were!"

"Oh, yeah. Thanks for covering for me."

"You're not welcome. I was worried about you."

"Ugh, stop it," Chihiro moaned. "I just received the same speech from my parents."

"And now you're gonna hear it again," Kagura snapped. "Now, spill. Where were you, and what were you doing?"

"Hey Kagura, remember how you dragged me out of the warmth of my bed to drop me off in a cold, desolate amusement park?" Chihiro asked, her voice sharpened with an edge of sarcasm.

"What's your point?"

"You still owe me for that."

"What? No way!"

"Your payment can be not to pester me right now," Chihiro concluded. "I'll explain everything another time."

"I made up an alibi for you when your parents called," Kagura insisted. "My debt has been paid."

"That doesn't count. I still got yelled at."

"I never said you wouldn't."

"Well," Chihiro began, switching tactics, "you just said that you were worried about me."

"Of course I was."

"And I'm back home in one piece, right?"

"I guess..."

"So you don't have to worry about a thing. Goodbye."

"No, wait -"

Chihiro hung up.

She had told enough lies today and wasn't all that willing to continue her streak. At the same time, she couldn't risk telling the truth, either.

Kagura was her best friend, but a brainy one at that. There's no way she'd believe that Chihiro had fought alongside a dine-and-dashing, bat-winged jerk against a horde of angry shadow creatures, nor would she believe that the sun had set in just a matter of seconds. Chihiro herself was still having a difficult time coming to terms with it all.

She slid her phone in her back pocket as she spotted the first-aid kit sitting in the top-right corner of the closet. She grabbed it and quickly backtracked to her room.

She flipped the light switch on and promptly closed the door behind her.

"Yo."

Though she knew Mr. False was in the room, Chihiro still jumped at the sound of his voice.

She looked up to see him lounging across her bed, reading a teen beauty magazine. He looked so unnatural there, his red hair and yellow eyes contrasting greatly with the relative blue scheme of her room. His hair was matted with sweat, and his wound was still bleeding.

"What took you so long?" he asked, placing the magazine on the nearby nightstand. He moved to sit on the edge of the bed, revealing a body-shaped dust print all over the comforter.

Chihiro grimaced, trying not to think of what other-worldly germs he was spreading to her bed. "I was confronted by multiple people."

Mr. False frowned. "Do your parents know I'm here?"

Chihiro shook her head. "Of course not. They just yelled at me for having disappeared for a few hours. I had to lie to them so they wouldn't suspect anything."

He raised his eyebrows. "You lied to your parents?"

"Yes, I lied to my parents. Don't look so surprised. I'm a teenager, not a saint." Chihiro moved to sit next to him on the bed. "Besides, they'd never believe the truth."

"You look upset," he noted.

"I _am_ upset." She opened the kit. "It's not like I enjoy lying to my parents, and now my best friend probably thinks I'm a recently converted lunatic."

Mr. False was silent for a moment. "You didn't have to do that for my sake."

"What, lie?" Chihiro shook her head. "I didn't do it just for you. Like I said, nobody would ever believe me if I told what really happened today."

She rifled through the kit's contents, pulling out a packet of moist towelettes. She ripped it open and pulled out a wipe. She moved toward Mr. False with it.

He flinched back. "What are you doing?"

"Stay still. I have to clean that nasty cut on your forehead." She reached out with her free hand and gently pushed his hair out of the way before dabbing the gash with the wipe, removing any traces of dirt.

There were a few moments of awkward silence that followed.

"What's your name?" he asked suddenly.

Chihiro blinked, surprised that he even wanted to know. "Chihiro. Chihiro Ogino."

"Chihiro Ogino," he repeated, testing the words. He nodded, a look of satisfaction crossing his features.

"How about you? What's your name?" Chihiro asked.

She hadn't originally planned on learning this guy's name, especially since she had no desire to keep in touch with him after she was done playing nurse. But he asked for hers first, so it was only fair that she ask for his in return.

"Daisuke."

"Daisuke," Chihiro repeated. At least she didn't have to refer to him as Mr. False anymore. "You have a last name?"

"Of course not." He snorted. "What am I, human?"

"Sorry for asking," she muttered. She pulled the wipe back and, after inspecting the gash, reached back in the kit for a bandage. "But there's something else I've been wanting to know."

"What is it?"

She picked up a bandage and stripped its packaging off. "Back then, I could have been attacked by those... those things, but you pulled me out of the way. Twice, in fact. Why?"

"Oh, that? You're welcome."

"I'm asking you why you did it, not thanking you for it."

"Hmm. How do I put this?" He held his chin, thinking. "Humans are to me what dogs are to humans."

"You're calling me a dog?" Chihiro asked, unimpressed.

"No. I'm referring to something like a food chain," Daisuke insisted. "While you humans are clearly above dogs in hierarchical standing, wouldn't it be cruel to simply watch a dog die right in front of you?"

"Of course. If I could, I'd jump in to save that dog."

"Exactly. Us spirits think in a similar way." Daisuke paused. "But I guess I could ask you the same thing."

"Why I jumped in to save you?" Chihiro pressed the bandage above Daisuke's left brow.

He nodded. "And not just that, either. All of this." He gestured to the first-aid kit. "Why are you being so kind to me?"

Chihiro shrugged. "I don't really know. When I saw you fighting those shadow things, I knew I couldn't just leave you to your death. Even if you did act like a jerk to me."

"You aren't doing this because I'm good-lucking?"

"_No!" _she spat. "How conceited are you?"

"It's just... in the past, humans – women in particular – have always sought my affection over my safety. You took me by surprise."

"Then I guess I'm not like those other women," Chihiro said. "I just wanted to help you. Think of it as an act of kindness."

"Huh."

"Hm? What is it?"

"Nothing."

Daisuke was absolutely intrigued by this woman. Before today, he'd thought that all humans were the same.

Over the centuries, he'd grown accustomed to human women throwing themselves at him, mesmerized by his perfect face. It didn't matter what he said to them or how cold he acted. They still lusted madly over his beauty and looked upon him like he was a prize to be won. He could have had a thousand gashes over his body and not one of them would have cared in the slightest.

His own kind had urged him to pick any random woman and take her as a bride so that the bloodline of his race could grow and continue. It didn't matter who he chose, since any human would be happy to marry him.

But the idea of marrying one of those beauty-hungry humans repulsed him. He couldn't do it, no matter how much his brothers pestered him. What was the rush, anyway? His kind was immortal. He saw no need to pass his genes on if he was going to live forever.

And then... he was hit by a different woman. Literally. She'd run headfirst into him and knocked herself down.

Chihiro Ogino.

At first, he was struck with confusion by her actions. She didn't blush or stammer when looking into his eyes, and then she'd even started yelling at him. That had never happened before. He didn't think much of the encounter, figuring that even though the girl was different personality-wise, she'd never sincerely reach out to help him.

That's why he was surprised when she did. Once again, she'd run straight into him, this time knocking him into the ground. Had she not done that, he would have been defeated by the shadow spirit lurking undetected behind him. What's more, she'd refused to leave his side during the fight, preferring to risk her life for the sake of his.

And now, she was pasting band-aids to his forehead over a cut that would have healed on its own by morning.

She was different. And after centuries of routine, Daisuke liked different.

"Chihiro Ogino," he said.

"Yes, that is my name," she replied, closing the kit. "When do you think you're going to leave?"

"...Never."

"Wait, what?" Chihiro asked, not sure she'd heard right. "Did you say _never?"_

"Yes."

"Then you sure have a twisted sense of humor." Chihiro pushed her hand against his chest. "Nice meeting you, though. Now, get out."

He grabbed her hand with one of his.

Chihiro tried to pull back, starting to get both annoyed and freaked out. "Let go of me."

One side of his mouth curled up in an amused grin. "Woman..."

She looked at him.

"How would you like to be my wife?"

* * *

><p><strong>AN When I say that I just finished this chapter, I literally mean that I _just _finished this chapter. So like Chapter Two, there may or may not be minor detail changes within the next twenty-four hours.**

**Anyway, Daisuke's new infatuation with Chihiro is surely bound to cause problems in the future, especially with our favorite dragon. Not to mention that his infatuation will surely piss off Chihiro herself. Let's see what happens. Luckily, I have already started the next chapter. Thanks for reading!**


	4. Trigonometry, Not Magic

**A/N Sorry for not updating for a few weeks. I've been super busy with schoolwork, and I'm actually writing this at 3 in the morning. So forgive me if a few things seem off.**

* * *

><p>Chihiro curled her hands into fists, leaving crescent-shaped nail marks embedded in her palms. She'd been doing that a lot over the past two days, especially whenever she thought about Daisuke. She hadn't seen him since he'd asked her to be his wife, but that was probably due to the fact that she had practically thrown him out of her window afterwards.<p>

What was his problem? So she made his boo-boo all better. That didn't mean she wanted to marry the guy! She didn't even know him all that well, and vice-versa. What she _did _know about him was that he was an arrogant, condescending son-of-a-bitch who must have mistaken her kindness for flirtation.

One moment he was stepping all over her pathetic human self, and the next he was proposing to her. Unbelievable.

"...and that's when I told her that I really didn't like her haircut." Bits of Kagura's voice filtered through Chihiro's train of thought.

She looked to her right, where Kagura was walking next to her. "Huh?"

Kagura sighed. "Chihiro, you've been completely out of it lately."

"Sorry."

The two were walking home from school, huddled into themselves for warmth as the winter breeze picked up. Their skirts offered no protection from the biting cold, and their thighs were beginning to pale and freeze. Kagura must have been talking the whole time, but Chihiro hadn't noticed.

When Chihiro had gone to school on Monday, Kagura had immediately demanded an explanation to the Sunday phone call. Chihiro had given the lame excuse that she'd just been tired and incoherent, and that the screaming in the background had been from a movie playing on her television. Kagura didn't believe any of that and remained suspicious, but thankfully, didn't press the issue. Even Miss Relentless knew that some secrets were meant to be kept as secrets.

Since then, Chihiro was determined to not let Kagura suspect anything else was wrong, but she wasn't doing such a great job. Especially since over the past two days, her mind had been completely revolved around Daisuke and what he'd said.

"Are you not feeling well?" Kagura asked. "You haven't been speaking all that much."

Chihiro shrugged. "I'm fine."

The two walked in silence, and Chihiro became absorbed in her thoughts once again.

What _was _Daisuke, anyway? She knew that he wasn't human, but that was where the extent of her knowledge ended. He'd been pretty upfront with her since the beginning, yet he still hadn't revealed his exact identity. She hadn't initially cared for what he was, but thinking about it made her curious. Either he'd never gotten the chance to tell her, or he was hiding something important.

"Hey Kagura," Chihiro said. "Can I ask you something?"

Kagura, pleased that Chihiro was finally initiating a conversation, smiled brightly. "Sure."

"I was surfing the internet a few days ago, and I came across a strange-looking creature on a random site." Not all of this was a lie. To her, Daisuke _was _indeed a strange-looking creature.

"I didn't know what it was, so I thought that you would know," she continued.

Kagura sucked in a breath. "You came to _me_ for this? You know I can't stand all that fairytale garbage. I don't know anything about mythological creatures."

"But you're the smartest person I know," Chihiro complimented, feeling a bit guilty for sucking up to her friend just for information. "If anyone were to know what it was, I'd bet on you."

Kagura blushed appreciatively. "Can't argue with that. Describe it to me."

"Let's see..." Chihiro tapped her forefinger against her lip. "It had the head and body of a man, a heart-tipped tail, horns like a ram's, and bat-like wings." She knew not to mention the red hair and yellow eyes.

Kagura furrowed her brows. "Was its face ugly or beautiful?"

Chihiro grimaced, remembering Daisuke's self-absorption. "_I _didn't think it was beautiful."

"So it _was_ beautiful," Kagura said. "And I think I know what it is."

Chihiro gasped. "You do?"

Kagura nodded. "Yeah. My crazy, religious aunt once told me about it over dinner. She knows way too much about hell's creatures than is comfortably possible."

"Hell's creatures?" Chihiro repeated, not liking the sound of that.

"Yup. What you saw was an incubus."

"In-cu-bus?" Chihiro furrowed her brows. "I've heard of it before, but I never knew what it was."

"All you really have to know about the incubus is that it is a creature of _sex_." Kagura giggled.

Chihiro cocked her head to the side. "Can I get a more in-depth elaboration?"

"Incubi are creatures that engage in sexual activity with sleeping women." Kagura's cool, pedantic alter-ego had come out. "The human women who fall prey to the incubus's advances are able to conceive and carry his offspring, allowing the creature's race to flourish."

There was a beat of silence as Chihiro absorbed the information.

"So you're saying that these incubi rape women in their sleep for their own greedy desires?" Chihiro asked through grit teeth.

Kagura shrugged, oblivious to Chihiro's brewing anger. "Pretty much. But guys have to watch out, too. The female counterpart of the incubus is the succubus, which preys in a similar way but exclusively on sleeping men."

Chihiro shook her head. "How gross."

Kagura nodded in agreement. "But looks can be deceiving. Incubi and succubi are typically known to sport beautiful appearances, helping them lure in human victims."

"I don't believe this," Chihiro said, mostly to herself.

"Yeah, I don't believe it, either," Kagura agreed. "The incubus and succubus don't exist. They're just fables made up by people who needed an excuse when they were caught cheating on their spouses."

Chihiro opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. How was she supposed to explain that one of these supposed fables had popped the question to her?

If she was angry before, she was livid now.

Daisuke was an incubus. A dirty, sex-crazed incubus. He didn't actually want to marry Chihiro, not that she'd wanted his affection in the first place. He probably wanted to lure her into trusting him before letting his true nature shine.

Her nostrils flared as her nails dug even harder into her skin. He'd better hope to never crossed paths with her again.

"...tomorrow."

Chihiro looked up. "What?"

Kagura huffed impatiently. "I said, I'll see you tomorrow."

"Oh." They were at the fork in the road where Chihiro's street separated from Kagura's. "Yeah, see you tomorrow."

* * *

><p>Chihiro usually hated Trigonometry homework, but tonight, it provided a much needed distraction. Still, her pencil paused in the middle of an equation as stray thoughts siphoned into her state of mind. What would she do if Daisuke came back? Was she strong enough to protect herself from something that wasn't human?<p>

She shook her head, not wanting to think about the possibility of Daisuke returning. Hopefully, he understood that her shoving him out of her window was an indication that he was to remain much further than an arm's length away from her.

Taking deep breaths and convincing herself that she had nothing to fear, she returned to her work.

She was just finding the value of _x _for which_ (f)x = g(x) _when Yuko called up to her from downstairs.

"Chihiro? Come help me set the table."

"Okay, be right there," Chihiro called back, flipping her textbook closed.

As she was walking down the stairs, there was a knock on the door.

"It's awfully late for visitors," Yuko said, appearing by the foot of the stairs. "You didn't invite anyone over, did you?"

"No." She walked past her mother and to the door. "I wonder who it could be...?"

When she opened it, she immediately wished she hadn't.

There, standing in the cold with a stupid grin on his face, was Daisuke.

He wore beige trousers and a gray sweater-vest over a blue cardigan. His hair was still unnaturally red and his eyes still unnaturally yellow, and he gazed at her through a pair of thick-wired glasses. The battle scar above his left eye was no longer there.

He smelled strongly of a musky, citrusy scent that reminded Chihiro of some of her male peers. Dear lord, was he wearing cologne?

He'd cleaned up since the last time Chihiro saw him. That didn't mean she wanted him anywhere near her or her property.

"You...!" she gasped, grasping her mind for anything to say.

He held up a hand in greeting. "Hey."

Yuko came by to stand next to her daughter. Taking one good look at the visitor, she gasped. "Now, who is this?"

"Hello, Mrs. Ogino," Daisuke greeted, extending a hand to Yuko. "I'm Daisuke. I know your daughter."

Before Chihiro could slam the door in his face, Yuko took his hand and shook it. "Nice to meet you, Daisuke."

Chihiro couldn't believe this. There was her mother, a woman appearing to be at least twenty years this guy's senior, actually blushing over his presence.

Yuko turned to her daughter. "Chihiro, you didn't tell me you knew such a handsome boy." Then, to Daisuke. "How do you know my daughter? Are you two classmates?"

"Actually, Mom -" Chihiro began.

"It's okay, Chihiro," Daisuke cut her off.

"No, it's _not _okay," Chihiro retorted. "Now, get out of here before I -"

"Our secret was bound to come out sometime," Daisuke cut her off again. "You know that."

"What?" Chihiro arched a brow, wondering where this idiot was taking the conversation. "What are you talking about?"

By this point, Akio had appeared in the background, listening quietly but intently to the exchange.

"Secret? What secret?" Yuko asked, swiveling her head between Chihiro and Daisuke.

Daisuke cleared his throat. "With all due respect, Mrs. and Mr. Ogino, I'm going to be very upfront."

"About what?" Chihiro demanded.

Everybody ignored her.

"You see," Daisuke continued, "your daughter and I have been dating for the past year, and I thought it would be appropriate to finally introduce myself."

The jaws of the Ogino family simultaneously dropped.

Akio was the first to break the silence. "Chihiro? Is this true?" He didn't seem too thrilled about the news.

Through grit teeth, Chihiro responded. "No, of course not."

"Oh, don't be like that," Daisuke teased, his demeanor utterly happy-go-lucky. "You're the one who said that if we wanted to get married, I'd have to meet your parents first."

"Marriage?" Yuko and Akio said at the same time. Only, Yuko looked excited in contrast to her husband, who looked absolutely flabbergasted.

"No, this is all a mistake," Chihiro insisted to her parents. "This guy's a creep. We've never dated, and we sure aren't getting married at any point in this lifetime."

Daisuke laughed lightly. "She's so funny, isn't she? That's one of the many reasons why I fell for her."

Chihiro stepped forward and grabbed his collar. Pulling his face close to hers, she threw him the nastiest glare she could conjure. In a low voice, she said, "Look, I don't know what your deal is, but I'm giving you ten seconds to get off my porch and out of my life."

Daisuke, not wavered by her threat, smiled at her. "Not without my fiancé."

"In case you didn't know, me throwing you out my window was a definite _no _to your brainless proposal."

"Chihiro!" Yuko chastised. "You shouldn't do that so bluntly, especially in front of us."

Chihiro immediately released her hold on Daisuke's shirt, realizing what that must have looked like to her parents. "No, I'm not -"

"I can't believe you hid the fact that you had a boyfriend from us," Akio interrupted, coming to stand beside his wife. His face was flushed in fatherly anger as he watched what appeared to be an intimate exchange between his daughter and her yearlong boyfriend.

"Because I never had one to begin with!" Chihiro exclaimed, throwing her hands up in frustration. "Mom, Dad, I'm telling you the truth when I say that I hardly even know this guy!"

"Oh, Chihiro. There's no need to be embarrassed by this," Yuko said, wrapping an arm around her daughter. "Even _I _didn't tell my parents about your father and I until five months after we started dating."

"No more," Chihiro moaned, hating it when her mother reminisced about the _olden times. _"I'm being serious, and neither of you are listening!"

"I'm listening," Akio interjected. "And once your boyfriend goes home, you and I are going to have a long talk about keeping secrets in this family."

"Are you kidding?" Chihiro demanded. "I'm not lying about this!"

Ignoring her daughter's rant, Yuko turned to Daisuke. "We're just about to eat dinner. Would you like to join us? It's freezing out here!"

Throwing Chihiro a victory smirk, Daisuke stepped inside the house. "I'd be glad to."

* * *

><p>"I can't believe you live in Okinawa," Akio said. "I went to college there!"<p>

"Isn't it such a great place?" Daisuke asked. "It's like living in one, big tourist attraction."

Akio nodded. "I used to visit the Yaeyama Islands all the time. They're just south of the city."

"Really? I was going to go visit in a few weeks. Please, tell me more about them."

"I don't believe this," Chihiro muttered from her seat on Daisuke's right.

Over the span of a steak-and-potato-dinner, Akio had warmed up considerably to Chihiro's "boyfriend." While Daisuke had been nothing but polite and reserved to the Ogino parents, Chihiro knew he was full of bullshit. Twice, she had tried to call the police, but Yuko had grabbed the phone from her hand before the line could connect.

"Why would you call the cops on your own boyfriend?" Yuko had demanded.

And Chihiro had replied, "Because he's not my boyfriend!"

Even so, neither of her parents believed her. And why should they? Aside from his unusual dyed hair and colored contact lenses, Daisuke appeared to be a smart and capable young man. In their minds, their daughter had hit the jackpot in the dating world.

If only they knew Daisuke's true intentions.

Chihiro tightened her jaw and grasped her fork in her hand. She knew she wasn't safe with an incubus in her house. He'd probably only saved her life to begin with just so he could take advantage of her later.

Her knuckles turned white at the idea.

In no way was she a useless damsel in distress. It didn't matter that she didn't have the support of her parents. She would have dealt with Daisuke by herself from the start.

Even if that meant doing something illegal.

She watched as Daisuke pierced a heaping bite of steak with his fork. Gripping her own fork, she reeled her arm back and prepared to strike.

At that moment, she didn't care if her own parents called the cops on her. She'd rather sit in a prison cell for the rest of her life than let this demonic being corrupt her sleeping body. If there was one thing she'd be able to walk away with from this, it would be her pride.

Daisuke's eyes silently flashed up to hers before the impact, and the fork flew out of her hand and onto the ground as if pulled by an invisible force.

"Chihiro, is something wrong?" Akio asked, looking after her fallen utensil.

"Yes, something is wrong!" Chihiro said, visibly shaken by Daisuke's telepathic ability.

"Well, what is it?"

She pointed at Daisuke. "You see this guy? He's not my boyfriend!"

"Oh, enough with that," Yuko said from her place at the kitchen sink. "Stop being so dramatic."

Chihiro groaned in exasperation. Nothing she said was being taken seriously. Telling her parents that Daisuke was in fact a rapist from hell wouldn't do her much good.

She stood up abruptly, needing to get away from the room. "I'm excusing myself."

"Good idea," Yuko said. "You can show Daisuke around the house."

"That's not what I was -"

"Don't worry about cleaning up tonight. You spend time with your boyfriend." Yuko winked.

Chihiro stared. Did her mother seriously just _wink _at her?

She shuddered and focused her attention on Daisuke, who was staring up innocently at her.

"Daisuke," she called his name sarcastically sweet. "Why don't I show you my room?"

"Okay," he agreed, standing up.

"Keep the door open," Akio warned.

Chihiro rolled her eyes. She couldn't say a single word without it being misinterpreted.

"Sure thing, Dad." She grabbed Daisuke by the arm, making sure her nails dug into his flesh as she led him away from the table and up the stairs.

"Don't you think you're holding on a bit too tight?" Daisuke asked, his expression amused.

"Shut up," she hissed as they reached the second floor.

She shoved Daisuke into her room and, despite her father's warning, closed the door behind her. She didn't want her parents to hear the inevitable argument that was surely on the way.

"I don't know what you think you're doing, but I do know what you are." She tried her best to look intimidating even though he was a few inches taller than her, forcing her neck to crane back just to see his face. "You're an incubus."

"Took you long enough," Daisuke replied, appearing not all that concerned that his very existence was being unveiled by a seventeen-year-old girl.

"Is that all you have to say?" Chihiro demanded, her face turning a few shades red.

"What do you want me to say?"

"I don't know, maybe you can brush on the details of how you rape women in their sleep? Or that you only use humans for the sake of your own survival!"

"First, can we talk about how you just tried to stab me with a fork?"

"That was for my own safety!"

Daisuke sighed and wiped his hands across his face. "I knew I'd have to explain myself eventually. You humans are so stupid."

"Do you seriously think you have to audacity to call me stupid?"

"Yes, I do," Daisuke replied. "Because you're making all these false assumptions about me and my kind."

"Why should I believe that what I heard about you is false?"

"Well, where did you receive this information from? Was it through some kind of religious freak?" Daisuke guessed.

"Uh..." Her argument ran dry. She did indirectly receive the information from Kagura's aunt, who was, without a doubt, religiously insane. The woman doused Kagura in holy water whenever she got the chance.

"That's what I thought," Daisuke said in lieu of her silence. He walked over to her bed and sat on the edge. "Now, come sit here and let me defend myself."

Chihiro raised her eyebrows at him. "No way. I am _not _sitting on a _bed _with _you."_

Daisuke rolled his eyes. "Fine. Sit, stand, I don't care. Just hear me out, okay?"

Chihiro didn't say anything, and Daisuke took that as a cue to speak.

"Throughout all of history, you humans have pinned me as a demon, which is absolutely ridiculous."

"Why is that ridiculous?"

"Because a demon is essentially an angel who has been cast out of heaven." He said this like it was a very obvious fact.

"You're a former angel?"

Daisuke gave a short, dry laugh. "Of course not. The point I'm trying to make is that I've been an incubus from the start. There were no prissy little angels involved in my birth."

"So...?" Chihiro prompted, digging for more information.

"So I'm not a demon. I'm a spirit."

"That doesn't change the fact that you come on to sleeping women," Chihiro pointed out.

Daisuke huffed exasperatingly as if he was used to hearing the same accusations. "I don't do that. Neither do any of my brothers."

Chihiro raised her eyebrows, not entirely convinced.

"While it is true that we use humans to birth our young, we always make sure to receive consent from them beforehand. We'd never forcefully take an unwilling human."

"How do I know you're telling the truth?"

Daisuke shrugged. "Believe what you want. But it was the religious extremists of your kind that initially spread the lies about mine. They didn't condone different species intermingling."

Chihiro tried to come up with another contradiction to his statement, but her mind drew blank. She knew nothing about spirits or religious history.

"I saved you, remember?" Daisuke reminded her. Then, quieter, "You don't have to be afraid of me."

She blinked, surprised at the softness in his tone.

No, she didn't have to be afraid of him.

Deep down, she knew Daisuke was right. She had already acknowledged the fact that it was unlikely for Daisuke to harm her since he did save her life. If he had wanted to sincerely torment her, he would have done so already. She shouldn't have been so quick to judge his intentions. Hastiness was an unbroken characteristic of hers.

"So maybe you're right," Chihiro resigned. "But what are you doing here?"

Daisuke smiled. "I've come to retrieve my wife."

"I really hope you're not talking about me. Didn't you just say that you'd never marry an unwilling woman?"

"Just because you're unwilling to marry me now doesn't mean you won't change your mind later," Daisuke said. "I still have time to win your love."

"You're so optimistic about this that it actually hurts. Unfortunately for you, I don't plan on marrying anything that isn't human."

Daisuke shrugged, trying to keep the confident smirk on his face from spreading.

Chihiro opened her door and pointed outside. "Goodbye, Daisuke."

"Wait." Daisuke shook his head as if trying to remember something. "There's a legitimate reason why I came to see you tonight. I've been meaning to ask you something that's been on my mind over the past few days."

"If you're asking me to be your wife again, then forget it."

"No, not that. I wanted to know where you got your hair tie from."

"My hair tie?"

"Yes, your hair tie. You know, the one that nearly blinded us in a magical light as it saved our lives?" His condescending attitude was back in full swing.

"I know what hair tie you're talking about," Chihiro snapped. "But how do you expect me to know where I got it from? It probably cost something like two-hundred yen at a local store."

"Do you really think that a measly, store-bought hair tie would have such great, magical potential?"

"Sorry to disappoint you, but I really wouldn't know. Lately, I've been doing my best to study trigonometry, not magic."

Sighing, Daisuke held out his hand. "Let me see it."

Chihiro walked over to her dresser and picked up the tie. She flung it into Daisuke's waiting palm.

"Hmm..." He brought the tie close to his face, squinting at it in concentration. He pulled and twisted it, making sure to inspect every detail.

"Well?" Chihiro asked after a minute.

Daisuke flung it back at her. She quickly caught it before snapping it around her wrist.

"It's definitely something that was made in my world," Daisuke surmised.

Chihiro furrowed her brows. "Your world?"

Daisuke nodded. "It's fibers are made up of a very precise magic. Only someone with many years of experience could have crafted it."

"But what do you mean by 'my world'?"

Daisuke stared at her, fighting the urge to degrade her clueless human self. "You didn't know? That amusement park we first met in is a portal that separates my world from yours."

Now it was Chihiro's turn to stare. What she was hearing sounded a lot like the silly fables that circulated amongst the locals.

"You're joking, right?" she asked.

Daisuke shook his head slowly. "Why do you think I was so desperate to get you out of there before the sun set?"

Chihiro swallowed hard. Just when she thought the surprises finally ended, they didn't. She'd seen too much of the unexplainable to dispute this new piece of information. She just wished that everything she originally thought was fiction would stay fiction.

"So... you think I got this tie from your world?" Chihiro tentatively asked.

"It's unlikely that you got it from anywhere else." Daisuke lowered himself until he was lying against the bed. "Whoever made the tie made it specifically for you. That would explain why it protected you from the shadow spirits, as would it explain why you're able to resist my good looks."

"Please. With or without the tie, I still wouldn't feel anything more than a mutual, non-romantic _friendship_ towards you." She said _friendship _like it was a curse-word.

Daisuke pursed his lips, clearly wanting to refute this statement.

"Anyway," Chihiro continued, "I've never even left this country, and I'm pretty sure I've never left this world, either."

"But you're not completely sure, are you?"

Chihiro hesitated.

No, she wasn't completely sure. While Daisuke had predominantly taken over her thoughts during the last forty-eight hours, she hadn't forgotten about the green eyes and their unknown origin. She was no closer to uncovering their mystery than when they had first appeared in her mind. What's more, she now had the mystery of a glowing, magical hair tie to take into account as well.

"Well," Chihiro began, "apparently, I've been to the amusement park long before you and I met."

"Apparently?" Daisuke echoed.

Chihiro nodded. "It was the day I first moved to this town. My mom said that we only stopped there for a few minutes, but I can't remember any of it."

Daisuke sat up. "What else did she tell you?"

"Um..." Chihiro thought back to their conversation. "She said that when we got back to the car, it was covered in dust as if we had been gone for weeks."

"That's it!" Daisuke's eyes widened in understanding.

"What?"

He turned to look at her. "There's not a doubt in my mind that you've been to the Spirit World before, and it appears that someone has erased your memories."

"Is that even possible?"

"Yeah." He stood up and began pacing. "This kind of makes sense, too. There was too much risk in allowing you, a human girl, to walk away from another world with your memories still intact; you could have exploited the entire spirit race."

Chihiro liked to think that her ten-year-old self would not have done that, especially since the current her couldn't even tell her parents that Daisuke wasn't human. But someone had sealed away her memories for a reason, and she got the feeling that she was never supposed to find out.

"What this person didn't know," Daisuke continued, "is that nobody here believes a word you say, so you couldn't have revealed much about the Spirit World even if you'd tried."

"That's not true!" Chihiro huffed. "My parents believe me when I lie."

"Yeah, but they sure don't believe you when you tell the truth." He grinned. "No matter how much you tried to convince them that I wasn't your boyfriend, they wouldn't listen to you. I almost felt sorry."

"Glad to receive your sympathy," Chihiro muttered. "But back to the subject. I want to uncover these missing memories of mine."

"Nice enthusiasm." Daisuke gave her a thumbs-up.

She glared at him. "I was hoping you'd offer a way to help me."

Daisuke sucked in a breath. "I _would _help you, but I don't have the magical capability to unlock forgotten memories."

"Then take me to someone who does," she insisted, unfazed.

A vein in his jaw twitched. "Listen, Chihiro. I know you want your memories back, but right now, that's not going to happen any time soon."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't know anybody who's strong enough to help you." His tone said: _so there. _

Chihiro was silent for a moment when an idea hit her. "What about that witch?"

With over-rehearsed confusion, Daisuke asked, "What witch?"

"I think you know exactly what witch. You know, the one that tried to turn you into a pig?"

Daisuke huffed out an aggravated breath. "Yubaba is not an option."

"And why not?"

"You said so yourself. She tried to turn me into a pig. We're not going to her."

"Let me get this straight," Chihiro said. "You won't help me uncover part of my past just because you _couldn't pay for a meal?"_

"You don't get it." Daisuke dragged his hands through his hair. "Yubaba is one of the worst souls ever to roam the land."

"She can't be that bad. I wouldn't like the idea of somebody stealing from me, either. Besides, it's you she's holding a grudge against, not me. She might be willing to help."

* * *

><p><strong>AN Like I say every chapter, I may or may not revise this depending how I feel when I'm more awake. I've already got my ideas plotted for Chapter Five, so you can expect something relatively soon. Also, forgive me if you think Chihiro's a touch too bold. I've always imagined her to grow up into an actual, witty and sarcastic teenager rather than a delicate little lady. **

**Thanks for reading!**


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